The Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) is a worldwide network of six identical telescopes, designed to have 24/7 observations of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

. The network serves multiple purposes, including the provision of operation data for use in space weather prediction, and the study of solar internal structure and dynamics using

helioseismology Helioseismology, a term coined by Douglas Gough, is the study of the structure and dynamics of the Sun through its oscillations. These are principally caused by sound waves that are continuously driven and damped by convection near the Sun's sur ...

. Deployed in 1995, GONG is a set of six observing systems geographically distributed around the Earth so that the Sun can be observed as continuously as possible. The six observatories are the

Teide Observatory Teide Observatory ( es, Observatorio del Teide), IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at , located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It bec ...

( Canary Islands), th
Learmonth Solar Observatory
(

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

), the

Big Bear Solar Observatory Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) is a university-based solar observatory in the United States. It is operated by New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). BBSO has a clear aperture Goode Solar Telescope (GST), which has no obscuration in th ...

(

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

), the

Mauna Loa Solar Observatory Mauna Loa Solar Observatory (MLSO) is a solar observatory located on the slopes of Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It is operated by the High Altitude Observatory (HAO), a laboratory within the National Center for A ...

(

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

), the Udaipur Solar Observatory (

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

) and the

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) is an astronomical observatory located on Cerro Tololo in the Coquimbo Region of northern Chile, with additional facilities located on Cerro Pachón about to the southeast. It is approximately ...

(

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

). With these sites, GONG typically can observe the Sun 91% of the time, 24/7. GONG was constructed to provide observations for helioseismology, which aims to understand the solar interior by analyzing the sound waves that are trapped in it. In 2001, the original GONG detectors were upgraded to 1000 x 1000 pixels and continuous magnetograms were implemented, and the new system is known as GONG++. While GONG still provides helioseismology data, it now also provides full-disk solar magnetic field maps (magnetograms) every minute and full-disk images of the Sun in the wavelength of the Hydrogen–α (Hα) spectral line every 20 seconds. Thes
data products
are used for research into the solar magnetic field and chromosphere but are also essential inputs into forecasts of space weather. The NOAA

Space Weather Prediction Center The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), named the Space Environment Center (SEC) until 2007, is a laboratory and service center of the US National Weather Service (NWS), part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), loc ...

(SWPC), the US Airforce

557th Weather Wing The 557th Weather Wing is a United States Air Force formation and its lead military meteorology center. It reports environmental situational awareness worldwide to the Air Force, the United States Army, joint warfighters, Unified Combatant Comm ...

, and the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

Community Coordinated Modeling Center {{unreferenced, date=February 2009 The Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) is a collaborative effort between multiple organizations to provide information and models relating to space weather research. The partnership includes resource ...

(CCMC) all use GONG data to predict space weather conditions. The GONG Project is managed by the National Solar Observatory's Integrated Synoptic Program (NISP), which is operated by AURA, Inc. under a cooperative agreement with the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

. GONG has been in operation since 1995 and is aging rapidly. To replace it, NSO is proposing to design and build a next-generation Ground-based solar Observing Network, provisionally named ngGONG.{{Cite journal , last=Pevtsov , first=Alexei A. , last2=Martinez-Pillet , first2=V. , last3=Gilbert , first3=H. , last4=de Wijn , first4=A. G. , last5=Roth , first5=M. , last6=Gosain , first6=S. , last7=Upton , first7=L. A. , last8=Katsukawa , first8=Y. , last9=Burkepile , first9=J. , last10=Zhang , first10=Jie , last11=Reardon , first11=K. P. , last12=Bertello , first12=L. , last13=Jain , first13=K. , last14=Tripathy , first14=S. C. , last15=Leka , first15=K. D. , date=2022-11-12 , title=Helio2024 Science White Paper: ngGONG -- Future Ground-based Facilities for Research in Heliophysics and Space Weather Operational Forecast , url=http://arxiv.org/abs/2211.06712 , journal=arXiv:2211.06712 stro-ph, doi=10.48550/arxiv.2211.06712

External links

GONG info
at the

National Solar Observatory The National Solar Observatory (NSO) is a United States public research institute to advance the knowledge of the physics of the Sun. NSO studies the Sun both as an astronomical object and as the dominant external influence on Earth. NSO is headq ...

site Solar observatories